We're Getting Married!

We first met in the operating room in Hershey Medical Center during a breast surgery, me as a young general surgery resident and Kelsey as a surgical technologist student. From that point we became infrequent hallway acquaintances, and it nearly remained that way for a year! On a November night in 2020, a simple facebook comment I sent blossomed into conversation that persists to this very day! This led to an informal coffee date in the hospital that lasted for hours. A few days later, Kelsey went into COVID quarantine during which we stayed in touch over facetime. After this period, we went to our first "out of hospital" date at Folklore Coffee Company in Elizabethtown, PA. Although I was on call and interrupted by calls from work, our street-side conversation lasted for hours and ended with a warm night-lit hug outside of the shop. Our next date was a dinner date in December at the Iron Hill Brewery in Hershey, PA. We had a delicious meal and drinks, and I was gifted from Kelsey a beautiful Christmas tree ornament with my name and an anatomic heart on it, to which I was totally surprised for getting a gift on our first dinner date! Shortly after, I was invited to Kelsey's 25th birthday get together at her parents' house in Mount Joy, PA. On the drive there was when I realized that I wanted Kelsey to be mine. I met her parents, sister, dog, and friends for the first time, and little did I realize until that day that I was already well known to her family as being Kelsey's work crush, and she was in love with me for nearly a year before the start of our conversation. We enjoyed the night of celebrations and chills, and knowing that I wanted her to be mine, the next day, December 19, 2020, at my complex in Hummelstown, PA, I asked her the question and we became a couple!

The first big task was to keep the proposal a secret, meaning only the 4 parents knew of my plans and my secretly bought ring. We booked a trip to Turks and Caicos with Kelsey completely un-suspecting on the events to come. I got in touch with a private photographer in Turks and Caicos who suggested Grace Bay Beach as one of the best beaches in the world to consider proposing at, and he had agreed to secretly set up camp there at a marked location to take photos, at 6:15 PM sharp. The ring was shipped to my parents' house and hidden, as we were going to depart from there for our trip. The day before, the ring remained hidden in my drawer at home, and my parents had quite the scare when Kelsey started looking in my backpack to make sure I had adequately packed for the trip, thinking that the ring was in my backpack, but it wasn't! The morning of leaving for the trip, I secretly placed the ring in my backpack and we made it to the airport and we touched down at Turks and Caicos, hours before the planned proposal at 6:15. I had told Kelsey that I had booked a really nice restaurant for dinner (internally, being a celebratory dinner), and that we had to stop by a botanical garden before dinner (which was right next to Grace Bay and the proposal site) at 6:00. During the time before the proposal, I got personally interrogated at the airport by security (but thankfully not searched), we stopped at the grocery store to pick up goods since Kelsey wanted to (which made me slightly uneasy leaving an expensive ring in a not so robust rental car in a new country), and made it to our beautiful penthouse. We enjoyed some celebratory drinks and took a walk around the block. The time grew closer. As Kelsey as showering, I took the ring out of my backpack and put it in my pant pocket. I took a shower and we had dressed up to go out. We then made it to the botanical garden next to Grace Bay at a nice time just before the sharp 6:15 proposal. The botanical garden was less than spectacular (which I didn't mind because it was all a ploy), but Kelsey pretended to like it, before I told her we had to go walk on the beach. We started walking on the beach towards the direction I was told the photographer would be hidden. As we were walking, I could see the blue towel in the tall grass that was the agreed sign that the photographer was there. Kelsey tried to get in the water before we made it to the spot and gave both me and the photographer a scare before I had to get her to keep walking with me! We walked a little further and we stopped near the blue towel in the distance. I started talking about my recited speech, which started off going over the things we need to celebrate during this trip with my transition being into celebrating one more thing. With Kelsey facing the water close to the shoreline, I got down on one knee, took the ring out of my pocket, and in a look of total shock in Kelsey, I asked "Will you marry me?" There was utter shock and speechlessness, and we skipped directly over the "yes" into a big hug on the beach and some tears. The photographer slowly came out and took many pictures and we had a 1-hour sunset engagement photo session with him. We went over to the restaurant I had planned and had a beautiful, beachside, dim-lit dinner where we exchanged our excitement, appreciation, and Kelsey's heartfelt voice telling me that she would take care of me for the rest of my life. She also asked me if she actually responded yes to my proposal!! We were so in the moment, neither of us thought she actually said yes! So, then she actually said yes! Many more tears and appreciation were shed and that is how we started our life together and our first day of a week-long celebration in Turks and Caicos!!! By the way, this was the biggest surprise that I have ever pulled, and I still don't know how everything worked out seamlessly, especially with so many moving parts! But it sure left us with a memory for a lifetime!!!!